by Ann Leckie
Very calmly, very deliberately, Queter turned to me. “You were right about the self-deception, Citizen.” Evenly, as though she only remarked casually on the weather. In Radchaai, though she might as well have used Delsig, which she knew I understood.
Her remark wasn’t meant for me. Still I replied. “You were always going to speak if you could, whether you thought it would do any good or not.”
She lifted one sardonic eyebrow. “Yes,” she agreed. “I was.”
18
From the moment we had left Fosyf’s sitting room, Sirix was tense and silent, and she did not say a word nearly all the way back to Athoek Station. This was a particularly impressive length of silence because Sword of Atagaris’s injury meant we’d be taking up more seats on the passenger shuttle from the elevator to the station than we ought, and so we had to wait a day for a flight with the available extra space.
Sirix didn’t speak until we were in the shuttle, an hour from docking with the station. Strapped into our seats, Five and Eight behind us, their attention mostly on Queter’s sister, who’d had a miserable time the whole flight, among strangers, missing home, disoriented and sick to her stomach in the microgravity but refusing to take any medication for it, upset further by the way her tears clung to her eyes or broke free into small liquid spheres when she wiped her face. She had finally fallen asleep.
Sirix had accepted the offered meds, was therefore more comfortable physically, but she had been troubled since we’d left the mountains. Since before, I thought. I knew she didn’t like Raughd, had, on the contrary, good reason to resent her, but I suspected that she of all people in the room that day had understood what Raughd must have felt, to hear her mother speak so easily, so calmly, of disinheriting her. Had understood the impulse that had led Raughd to smash that ancient tea set that her mother clearly valued highly, took pride in. Citizen Fosyf had not changed her mind, about her daughter or about the tea set. Kalr Five had retrieved the box from the trash, and the fragments of gold and glass, the shattered remains of the bowls and the flask that had survived undamaged for more than three thousand years. Until now.
“Was that justice, then?” Sirix asked. Quietly, as though she was not speaking to me, though no one else would have heard her.
“What is justice, Citizen?” I replied with my own question. “Where did justice lie, in that entire situation?” Sirix didn’t reply, either angry or at a loss for an answer. Both were difficult questions. “We speak of it as though it’s a simple thing, a matter of acting properly, as though it’s nothing more than an afternoon tea and the question only who takes the last pastry. So simple. Assign guilt to the guilty.”
“Is it not that simple?” asked Sirix after a few moments of silence. “There are right actions and wrong actions. And yet, I think that if you had been the magistrate, you would have let Citizen Queter go free.”
“If I had been the magistrate, I would have been an entirely different person than I am. But surely you don’t have less compassion for Citizen Queter than for Citizen Raughd.”
“Please, Fleet Captain,” she said after three long, slow breaths. I had made her angry. “Please don’t speak to me as though I’m stupid. You spent the night at the field workers’ house. You are apparently familiar with Valskaayans and fluent in Delsig. Still, it’s quite amazing that you walked to the house and came back the next morning with Queter. No protest, no difficulty. And before we even left the house—before the magistrate left—the field workers had sent Fosyf a list of demands. Just at the moment Fosyf can’t depend on the magistrate’s unquestioning support.”
It took me a moment to understand what she meant. “You think I put them up to it?”
“I can’t believe it’s merely fortuitous, that uneducated and uncivilized field workers, who for ten years and more could not find the resources to strike, choose to do so now.”
“Not fortuitous at all. And while they may be uneducated, they’re hardly uncivilized. They’re perfectly capable of planning such a thing on their own. They understand Fosyf’s position as well as anyone. Perhaps better than many.”
“And Queter coming with you so willingly, that wasn’t part of any bargain? She won’t ultimately be let off lightly? And in the meantime, Citizen Raughd’s life is destroyed.”
“No sympathy for Queter? Raughd acted from malice and injured pride, and would have destroyed more than me if she had succeeded. Queter was faced with an impossible situation. No matter what she did, things would end badly.”
A moment of silence. Then, “All she needed to do was go to the magistrate in the first place.”
I had to think about that for a few moments, to understand why Sirix of all people thought Queter could or should have done that. “You do realize,” I said finally, “that Citizen Queter would never have gotten within a kilometer of the district magistrate without my having explicitly demanded it. And I beg you to recall what generally happened in the past when Citizen Raughd misbehaved.”
“Still, if she had spoken properly she might have been listened to,” Sirix replied.
Queter had been right to expect no help from the district magistrate, I was sure. “She made the choices she made, and there’s no escaping the consequences of that. I doubt very much she’ll get off lightly. But I can’t condemn her. She was willing to sacrifice herself to protect her sister.” Sirix of all people ought to have approved of at least that. “Do you think that if the Lord of the Radch were here she would have seen through everything, to give each act and each actor’s heart its proper weight? To dispense perfect justice? Do you think it’s possible that any person will ever get precisely what they deserve, no more and no less?”
“That is what justice is, Citizen, isn’t it?” Sirix asked, ostensibly calm, but I could hear that very small tightness in her voice, a flattening of tone that told me she was, now, angry. “If either Raughd or Queter wants to appeal their judgment, there’s no recourse, not cut off from the palaces as we are. You’re the closest thing we have to the Lord of the Radch, but you aren’t the least bit impartial. And I can’t help but notice that each time you’ve arrived somewhere new, you’ve gone straight to the bottom of the ladder and begun making allies. Of course it would be foolish to think a daughter of Mianaai could arrive anywhere without immediately engaging in politics. But now I see you’ve aimed the Valskaayans at Fosyf, I’m wondering who you’re planning to aim the Ychana at.”
“I didn’t aim the Valskaayans at anyone. The field workers are entirely capable of making their own plans, and I assure you that they have. As for the Undergarden, you live there. You know what conditions are, there, and you know that it should have been repaired long ago.”
“You might have had a private word with the magistrate yourself, about the Valskaayans.”
“I did, in fact.”
“And,” Sirix continued, as though I had said nothing, “many of the Ychana’s problems would be remedied if only they became better citizens.”
“Just how good a citizen does one have to be,” I asked, “in order to have water and air, and medical help? And do your neighbors know you hold such a low opinion of them?” I didn’t doubt that, like the Valskaayan field workers, they did.
Sirix said nothing else for the rest of the trip.
Lieutenant Tisarwat met us at the shuttle dock. Relieved to see us, pleasantly anticipating… something. Apprehensive, perhaps of the same something. As other passengers streamed past I looked through Five and Eight’s eyes, saw that Sword of Atagaris’s ancillary was being tended to by medics and another segment of itself, that yet a third Sword of Atagaris ancillary had placed itself behind Captain Hetnys.
Lieutenant Tisarwat bowed. “Welcome back, sir.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” I turned to Captain Hetnys. “Captain, I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.” She acknowledged that with a bow and I gestured us away, out into the corridor and toward the lift that would take us to the Undergarden. The Genitalia Festival was long over
—there were no tiny, brightly colored penises hanging in the corridors, and the last of the foil sweet wrappers had gone to recycling.
And—though I knew this already, had seen it through Tisarwat’s eyes, and Bo Nine’s—there was no broken table at the entrance to the Undergarden. There was an open section door, and an indicator that said, quite properly and correctly, that the door was functioning as it should, with air on both sides of it. Beyond this, a scuffed but well-lit corridor. Mercy of Kalr showed me a little surge of pride from Lieutenant Tisarwat. She had been looking forward to showing me this.
“All the section doors leading out of the Undergarden on this level are repaired, sir,” Tisarwat said as we walked into the Undergarden corridor. “They’ve made good progress on the level two doors. Three and four are up next, of course.” We walked out into the Undergarden’s tiny, makeshift concourse. Well lit, now, the phosphorescent paint around the tea shop door barely noticeable, though still there, as were the spills and footprints. Two potted plants flanked the bench in the center of the open space, both clumps of thick, blade-like leaves shooting upward, one or two of them nearly a meter tall. Lieutenant Tisarwat saw me notice them, but none of her apprehension reached her face. The plants were, of course, the product of her conversation with Basnaaid. The small space seemed even smaller now it was brightly lit, and even a little crowded, not just residents, whom I recognized, but also Station Maintenance in gray coveralls passing through.
“And the plumbing?” I asked. Not mentioning the plants.
“This part of level one has water now.” Tisarwat’s satisfaction at saying that nearly eclipsed her fear that I’d notice she’d been spending time with Horticulture. “Still working on the other sections, and work has only barely started on level two. It’s slow going in some places, sir, and I’m afraid that level four is still… inconvenienced in that department. The residents here agreed it was best to start where most of the people live.”
“Rightly so, Lieutenant.” Of course I’d known most of this already, had kept half an eye on Tisarwat, on Bo Nine and Kalr Ten, on what was happening here on the station while I was downwell.
Behind me, behind Tisarwat, Sirix stopped, forcing Five and Eight behind her, shepherding Queter’s still silently miserable sister, to stop also. “And what about those residents? Do I still have my quarters, Lieutenant?”
Tisarwat smiled, a practiced, diplomatic expression I knew she’d been using a good deal this past week. “Everyone living in the Undergarden at the time the work began has been officially assigned whatever quarters they were using. Your room is still yours, Citizen, though it’s better lit now, and eventually will be better ventilated.” She turned to me. “There were some… misgivings about the installation of sensors.” There had been, in fact, a contentious meeting with Station Administrator Celar, here on this tiny concourse—the lifts hadn’t been ready yet—which Lieutenant Tisarwat had arranged by sheer force of will combined with a level of charm that had surprised even me, who had already suspected what sort of things she might be capable of. No Security, only Tisarwat sitting by the station administrator. “Ultimately, it was decided that sensors will be placed in corridors, but not in residences, unless the residents request it.”
Sirix made a small, derisive hah. “Even sensors in the corridors will be too much for some. But I suppose I’d better make my way home and find out just what you’ve done.”
“I think you’ll be pleased, Citizen,” replied Tisarwat, still in diplomatic mode. “But if you have any problems or complaints, please don’t hesitate to let me or any of Mercy of Kalr know.” Sirix did not answer this, only bowed and departed.
“You could send people directly to Station Administration,” I said, guessing what had troubled Sirix. I began walking again, putting our small procession back into motion. We turned a corner to find a set of lift doors sliding open, ready for us. Station watching us.
On Mercy of Kalr, Seivarden stood naked in the bath, attended by an Amaat. “Fleet captain’s back safe, then,” she said.
“Yes, Lieutenant.” The Amaat, speaking for Ship.
On Athoek Station, in the Undergarden, I stepped into the lift with Tisarwat, with my Kalrs, and Queter’s sister. Mercy of Kalr showed me Lieutenant Tisarwat’s momentary doubt, as she considered, not for the first time, the likelihood of my having seen, from downwell, everything she’d done. “I know I should send them to Station Administration, sir. But most of the people who live here would prefer not to go there. We are closer by. And we did start this, and we do live here. Unlike anyone in Administration.” A brief hesitation. “Not everyone here is happy about any of this. There’s some amount of smuggling that goes through here. Some stolen goods, some prohibited drugs. None of the people making a living off of that are pleased to have Station watching, even if it’s only in the corridors.”
I thought again of Seivarden. She’d been quite clear about her determination to never take kef again, and had stuck to her resolve so far. But when she was taking it she’d had an impressive ability to find it, and find ways to get it, no matter where she was. It was a good thing I’d left her in command of Mercy of Kalr, and not brought her here.
Still in the bath, on Mercy of Kalr, Seivarden crossed her arms. Uncrossed them again. A gesture I recognized from months ago. It surprised the Amaat attending her, though the only outward sign of that surprise was a quick two blinks. The words You were very worried appeared in the Amaat’s vision. “You were very worried,” she said, for Ship.
In the lift, in the Undergarden on Athoek Station, Tisarwat’s pride at showing me how much had been accomplished was suddenly drowned in a surge of the anxiety and self-loathing that had been hovering in the background the whole time.
“I see it, Fleet Captain,” Ship said to me, before I could say anything. “It’s mostly under control. I think your return is putting some stress on her. She’s worried you won’t approve.”
On Mercy of Kalr, Seivarden didn’t answer Ship right away. She’d recognized the arm-crossing gesture she’d just made, was ashamed of what it might say about her current state of mind. “Of course I was worried,” she said, finally. “Someone tried to blow up my captain.” The Amaat poured a measure of water over Seivarden’s head, and she sputtered a bit, keeping it out of her mouth and her nose.
In the lift in the Undergarden, Tisarwat said to me, “There’s been some complaining outside the Undergarden the past few days, about residential assignments.” Ostensibly calm, only the barest trace of her feelings in her voice. “There are those who think that it’s not fair the Ychana are going to suddenly have luxury quarters, and so much space, when they don’t deserve it.”
“Such wisdom,” I observed dryly, “to know what everyone deserves.”
“Sir,” agreed Lieutenant Tisarwat, with a fresh pang of guilt. Considered saying more, but decided not to.
“Forgive me for bringing this up,” said Ship to Seivarden, with the Amaat’s voice, on Mercy of Kalr. “I understand being alarmed by the attempt on the fleet captain’s life. I was alarmed, myself. But you are a soldier, Lieutenant. The fleet captain is as well. There is a certain amount of risk involved. I would think you’d be used to that. I’m sure the fleet captain is.”
Anxiety, from Seivarden, feeling doubly vulnerable because she was in the bath, uncovered. Uncovered by Ship’s question. “She’s not supposed to be at risk sitting in a garden drinking tea, Ship.” And silently, her fingers twitching just the slightest bit, You don’t want to lose her, either. Not wanting to say that aloud, in the hearing of her Amaat.
“Nowhere is completely safe, Lieutenant,” said Ship, through the Amaat, and then, words in Seivarden’s vision, All respect, Lieutenant, perhaps you should consult Medic.
Panic, from Seivarden, for just an instant. The Amaat, puzzled, saw Seivarden freeze. Saw Ship’s words in her own vision, It’s all right, Amaat. Continue.
Seivarden closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. She hadn’t tol
d Ship, or Medic, about her past difficulty with kef. Had been, I knew, confident that it would no longer be a problem for her.
Ship spoke aloud—or, rather, Ship showed the Amaat what it wanted to say, and Amaat said it. “You can’t be worried about taking command if something were to happen. You had your own ship, once.” Seivarden didn’t answer, just stood motionless on the grate while her Amaat did what was needful. The question was meant as much for Amaat’s ears as for Seivarden’s.
“No, Ship, that doesn’t trouble me.” Seivarden’s answer was also meant mainly for her Amaat. Silently, she said, She told you then.
She didn’t need to, replied Ship, in Seivarden’s vision. I do have some experience of the world, Lieutenant, and I see you very thoroughly. Aloud it said, “You were right. When the fleet captain stirs up trouble it’s not the ordinary sort. Surely you’re used to that by now.”
“It’s not an easy thing to get used to,” Seivarden replied, trying very hard to sound light and amused. And did not say, silently or aloud, that she would speak to Medic.
In the lift, in the Undergarden, on Athoek Station, I said to Lieutenant Tisarwat, “I need to speak to Governor Giarod as soon as possible. If I go to the governor’s residence to invite her to supper, will she be available to accept my invitation?” My rank and my ostensible social status gave me some amount of freedom from the strictest propriety, and an excuse to be arrogantly peremptory even to the system governor, but what I wanted to discuss with her was going to require some delicacy. And while I could have just messaged the question to Five, whose job it was to take care of such things for me, I knew that there were even now three citizens (one of them Skaaiat Awer’s cousin) lounging in my sitting room, drinking tea and waiting for Tisarwat. It was not intended to be an entirely social meeting.